Carl Jung wrote about how each woman has a male and a female side, called the anima and animus. As a woman gains more power in business, her male animus increases, which means that her shift in the internal balance of anima/animus shifts, which leads to a shift in the balance of power between her and a man (with his own internal anima-animus dynamic). This shifting is not only taking place in the interactions between an individual woman and man but also collectively between women and men. On the whole, the dynamics of the relationship between the sexes in the society is being thrown out of whack.

Women must take responsibility for their part in this.

Many women, out of insecurity about their newfound power, as well as, fear of attack for attaining this power and, while women are at it, actual attack for attaining this power, are reaching and overreacting by drawing more and more from their male side for protection. Indeed, there are some women who mistakenly believe that succeeding in business requires imitating men—and even more mistakenly, not nice men.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Organizations pay a lot of attention to product quality. Thousands of companies advertise that they are “ISO 9000 registered,” and man have objectives of making ‘products of the highest quality.’ They emphasize quality for four reasons:

a.Processes can now make products with guaranteed high quality;

b.High quality gives a competitive advantage;

c.Consumers have got used to high quality products, and won’t accept anything less;

d.High quality reduces costs.

If you make poor quality products, your customers will simply move to a competitor. Although high quality won’t guarantee the success of your products, low quality will certainly guarantee their failure. So survival is one of the benefits of high quality, and others include:

a.Competitive advantage coming from an enhanced reputation;

b.Larger market share with less effort in marketing;

c.Reduced liability for defects;

d.Less waste and higher productivity;

e.Lower costs and improved profitability;

f.Enhanced motivation and morale of employees;

g.Removal of hassle and irritants for managers.

Most of these are fairly obvious – if you increase the quality of your products, you expect people to switch from competitors. But the idea that higher quality can reduce costs is particularly interesting. This goes against the traditional view that higher quality automatically means higher cost. Gucci are well known for this combination, and say, ‘Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten’

When you take a broader look at the costs, you can see that some of them really go down with higher quality. If you buy a washing machine with a faulty part, you complain and the manufacturer repairs the machine under its guarantee. The manufacturer could have saved money by finding that fault before the machine left the factory, and it could have saved even more by making a machine that did not have a fault in the first place.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Line of Sight